Get summaries, questions, answers, solutions, notes, extras, PDF and guide of chapter 3, Social Institutions: NBSE Class 11 Sociology textbook, which is part of the syllabus for students studying under the Nagaland Board. These solutions, however, should only be treated as references and can be modified/changed.
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Summary
Social institutions are patterns of behavior that meet social needs. They are universal and found in all societies. The main institutions include kinship, economic, political, religious, and educational systems.
Marriage is a key institution that satisfies basic needs like regulating sexual drive and legitimizing children. It is a stable union between a man and woman. There are two main forms. Monogamy is when one man marries one woman. Polygamy involves multiple spouses. Polygyny is when a man has many wives. Polyandry is when a woman has many husbands.
The family is the basic unit of society. It helps with procreation and socialization. Families can be nuclear or joint. A nuclear family has parents and their children. A joint family includes more relatives living together. Families perform essential functions like providing sex gratification, raising children, and offering a home. They also handle economic roles, education, healthcare, and social control.
Kinship refers to relationships based on marriage, blood, or adoption. Kinship can be affinal, through marriage, or consanguineous, through blood. Incest taboos forbid sexual relations among close relatives. Kinship terms help identify relationships within families.
Economic systems organize how societies produce and distribute goods. Primitive economies rely on hunting and gathering. Agrarian economies focus on farming. Industrial economies involve manufacturing using machines. Mixed economies combine elements of capitalism and socialism. Developed economies have high living standards while developing ones are growing.
Political systems maintain order and stability. Power is the ability to influence others. Authority is legitimate power. Types of authority include traditional, rational-legal, and charismatic. Monarchy is rule by one person. Democracy is rule by the people. Democracies can be direct or representative.
Religion involves beliefs in supernatural beings and related practices. It includes animism, belief in spirits; polytheism, belief in many gods; and monotheism, belief in one god. Religion unites communities and influences other aspects of life.
Education transmits knowledge and skills to younger generations. It can be formal, happening in schools, or informal, occurring in daily life. Formal education has structured content and rules. Informal education happens through family and community activities.
These institutions work together to shape human societies. They ensure continuity and stability across generations. Understanding them helps explain how societies function and evolve over time.
Textbook solutions
Very Short Answer Type Questions
1. What is social institution? (’07, ’12)
Answer : A social institution refers to well-established practices and patterns of behaviour or ways of doing things in society while satisfying various social needs. According to Maclver and Page, institutions are “established forms or conditions of procedure characteristic of group activity”. Kingsley Davis defines an institution as “a set of interwoven folkways, mores and laws built around one or more functions”.
2. Give two examples of social institutions.
Answer : Two examples of social institutions are: (i) Family
(ii) Marriage
3. Define marriage. (’09)
Answer : Marriage is a socially sanctioned stable union of a man and woman for the satisfaction of the sexual need and for procreation. It defines the relationship between a man and a woman as husband and wife, marking the beginning of family life and determining the legitimacy of children.
4. What is monogamy?
Answer : Monogamy is a form of marriage in which one man (husband) is married to one woman (wife) at a given time. It is the most accepted form of marriage and is found in all types of societies.
5. Define polygamy. (’09)
Answer : Polygamy is a form of marriage in which either a woman has more than one husband or a man has more than one wife. It includes two forms: polygyny, where a man is married to more than one woman, and polyandry, where a woman is married to more than one man.
6. What is polygyny? (’10)
Answer : Polygyny is a union in which a man is married to more than one woman who are alive.
7. What is polyandry?
Answer : Polyandry is the marriage of a woman to more than one man who are alive.
8. What is sororal polygyny?
Answer : Sororal polygyny is a type of polygyny where a man is married to two or more sisters.
9. What is non-sororal polygyny?
Answer : Non-sororal polygyny is a type of polygyny where a man is married to two or more women who are not sisters.
10. What is fraternal polyandry?
Answer : Fraternal polyandry is a type of polyandry where a woman is married to two or more brothers.
11. What is non-fraternal polyandry?
Answer : Non-fraternal polyandry is a form of polyandry where a woman is married to two or more men who are not brothers.
12. What is a nuclear family? (’09)
Answer : A nuclear family is a group of persons consisting of a husband, wife, and their unmarried children. It is the smallest composite family unit.
13. Mention an essential function of family.
Answer : An essential function of the family is the satisfaction of sex gratification, which is necessary for the perpetuation of society.
14. What is family of orientation?
Answer : The family of orientation is the family in which an individual is born and brought up, including parents, brothers, and sisters.
15. What is meant by family of procreation?
Answer : The family of procreation is the family which an individual establishes through marriage, including the married couple and their offspring.
16. What is affinal kinship?
Answer : Affinal kinship is kinship based on affinity (nearness) due to marriage, as between a husband and wife. Marriage establishes relationships not only between a husband and wife but also between the husband and the wife’s relatives, and between the wife and the husband’s relatives.
17. What is consanguineous kinship?
Answer : Consanguineous kinship is based on common blood (consanguinity). The relationship between parents and children and between siblings (children of the same parents like brothers and sisters) is consanguineous kinship. Consanguineous kinship extends to all who have a common ancestry or descent, like grandparents and grandchildren, cousins, and so on.
18. Which type of kins is related through marriage? (’06)
Answer : Affinal kins are related through marriage.
19. What is incest taboo?
Answer : The incest taboo prohibits sexual contact among people defined as relatives, typically between parents and children, and between brothers and sisters, although there are rare exceptions. The taboo is found in all societies, although who is included as ‘family’ varies widely from only a few close blood relatives to everyone remotely related.
20. Who are secondary kins?
Answer : The primary kin of our first-degree kin are our secondary kin. They are not directly related to us but through one of our primary kin. Examples of secondary kin are: father’s father (i.e., paternal grandfather), mother’s father (i.e., maternal grandfather), father’s mother (i.e., paternal grandmother), wife’s or husband’s brothers and sisters, their parents, and so on.
21. How many types of tertiary kins an ‘ego’ can have?
Answer : An ‘ego’ can have 151 types of tertiary kins.
22. What is ‘avunculate’ behaviour?
Answer : ‘Avunculate’ behaviour is the kind of behaviour or usage which gives the maternal uncle an important status so far as his sister’s children are concerned. The maternal uncle is considered more important than even the father. The maternal uncle transfers his property to his nephew (i.e., the sister’s son). The nephew works for him rather than his own father. Sometimes the sister’s children are brought up in their maternal uncle’s family. Avunculate is common in matrilineal societies.
23. What is ‘couvade’?
Answer : ‘Couvade’ is kinship behaviour in which a husband imitates the behaviour of his wife during pregnancy and childbirth. The husband also leads the life of an invalid along with his wife whenever she gives birth to a child. He refrains from active life, goes on a sick diet, and observes certain taboos. This practice is common among the Khasi tribe of Meghalaya and Toda tribe of Nilgiri Hills.
24. What is ‘teknonymy’?
Answer : ‘Teknonymy’ is a usage where two kinsmen do not address each other directly but rather through a third person or symbol. The practice is very common in rural India where women generally do not utter the names of their husbands or elderly in-laws. A woman refers to her husband as the father of her child, using the name of the child.
25. What is classificatory term in kinship terminology?
Answer : A classificatory term in kinship terminology is the term which applies to persons of two or more kinship categories. For example, the term ‘cousin’ is used to refer to father’s brother’s son, father’s sister’s son, mother’s brother’s son, as well as to mother’s sister’s son. Similarly, the term ‘uncle’ refers to mother’s brother, father’s brother, mother’s sister’s husband, and father’s sister’s husband.
26. What are derivative kinship terms? (’14)
Answer : Derivative kinship terms are those kinship terms which are coined by joining suffixes or prefixes on objectives to the elementary kinship terms. Examples of such terms are grandfather, sister-in-law, step-son, and great-grandfather.
27. What are economic institutions?
Answer : Economic institutions are defined as “basic ideas, norms, and statutes which govern the allocation of scarce goods in any society, be it primitive or civilized” according to Kingsley Davis. Ogburn and Nimkoff define them as “the activities of men in relation to food and property.”
28. What is primitive economy?
Answer : Primitive economy is characterised by hunting and food-gathering societies. In the economically simplest of societies, people live by hunting wild animals and by gathering food as it grows naturally in the form of fruits, nuts, and vegetables.
29. What is agrarian economy?
Answer : Agrarian economy emerged when agriculture or settled cultivation became the main economic activity. It implied the cultivation of crops on the same land, leading to a more assured food supply, growth of population, and emergence of village communities.
30. What is an industrial economy?
Answer : An industrial economy is the modern economy whose foundation was laid in the middle of the eighteenth century with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in England. It refers to the replacement of manual power by mechanical power in the production process.
31. What is the dominant occupation in an agrarian society? (’08)
Answer : The dominant occupation in an agrarian society is agriculture or settled cultivation.
32. What is mixed economy?
Answer : Mixed economy is a compromise between the two economic systems, capitalism and socialism. It is a system which is free from the evils of both capitalism and socialism but integrates the good features of both. It is known as a golden mean between capitalism and socialism.
33. What is meant by political system?
Answer : Political system refers to the system of rules and regulations or control mechanisms to control the behavior of people in a society. It includes political institutions that deal with order and stability in society by enforcing norms, rules, and laws. The political system enjoys the monopoly of legitimate power or authority within a given territory.
34. What is monarchy?
Answer : Monarchy is the rule of a single person. It denotes simply the rule of one man (or woman), whether good or bad, legitimate or unlawful, wise or incompetent. In modern terms, it designates a particular type of one-person rule characterized by legitimate blood descent, where power passes through family from generation to generation.
35. What is democracy?
Answer : Democracy is the rule of the people. In a democracy, the people participate in their own political governance. It is a government that depends on the consent of the governed, meaning the supreme power is exercised by the people or citizens as a whole. Practically, this involves mechanisms for people to participate in decision-making and exercise control over the government, which remains in power so long as the people wish it to be in power.
36. Define religion. (’14)
Answer : Religion is “a unified system of beliefs and practices related to sacred things, that is, things set apart and forbidden, beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church.” It also involves systems of beliefs about supernatural beings, practices expressing these beliefs, relationships with others who accept the same beliefs and practices, and concepts of heaven and hell.
37. What is animism? (’12)
Answer : Animism is the belief in the soul (anima) or spirit. It is the belief that all objects, animals, and human beings are inhabited by spirits or souls. Animism is found in many tribal societies, such as the traditional religion of Naga tribes.
38. Give an example of polytheism.
Answer : Hinduism is an example of polytheism.
39. What is monotheism? (’06)
Answer : Monotheism is the belief in only one God. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are examples of monotheism.
40. What is education?
Answer : Education, in its broadest sense, is the transmission of knowledge and skills to the younger generation. It refers to a learning process and consists not merely in imparting knowledge but also in providing for the development of innate abilities of individuals and the learning of skills. In a broader sense, education is the process whereby the social heritage of a society is passed on from one generation to another so that the younger generation learns the rules of behavior of the society into which one is born.
41. What is informal education? (’09)
Answer : Informal education refers to the education which an individual acquires in the course of day-to-day life activities in the family and outside in the company of others. It is imparted through family and kinship groups where the language is only oral, and learning occurs by doing. People learn their language, rituals and ceremonies, norms and values, and skills through family and community activities, folklores, and folk-tales.
42. What is the meaning of ‘shiksha’?
Answer : The term ‘shiksha’ means ‘acquisition of culture’. Therefore, education, referred to as ‘shikshana’ in the Indian context, implies becoming a cultured person.
Short Answer Type Questions
1. What are the two major forms of marriage?
Answer : The two major forms of marriage are:
(i) Monogamy
(ii) Polygamy
32. Briefly discuss how formal education differs from informal education. (’07, ’12)
Answer : Formal education is imparted in a well-defined institutional setting and characterizes the modern system of education. It consists of an organized structure, a definite and properly spelled-out content of education, and definite rules and regulations. Informal education, on the other hand, is acquired in the course of day-to-day life activities in the family and outside in the company of others. It is mainly through family and community activities, folklores, and folk-tales that people learn their language, rituals and ceremonies, norms and values, and skills. Informal education dominates in societies where there are no schools or an insufficient number of schools to provide education to children. Even in modern societies, children receive informal education alongside formal education.
Essay Type Questions
1. Explain the meaning and forms of marriage.
Answer : Marriage is a socially sanctioned stable union of a man and woman for the satisfaction of the sexual need and for procreation. The institution of marriage defines the relationship between a man and a woman as husband and wife. It is also important in deciding the legitimacy of the children. There is economic cooperation between the persons who are married, as also between them and their children.
There are two basic forms of marriage found in different parts of the world or in different societies:
(i) Monogamy and
(ii) Polygamy.
Monogamy (single marriage) is a marriage of one man (husband) with one woman (wife) at a given time. It is the most accepted form of marriage and is found in all types of societies. In a society where monogamy prevails, a man or a woman can marry again only after the death of the spouse or the dissolution of the marriage through divorce.
Polygamy (multiple or plural marriage) is a marriage in which either a woman has more than one husband or a man has more than one wife. Thus, polygamy can have two forms:
(a) Polygyny and
(b) Polyandry.
Polygyny is a union in which a man is married to more than one woman who are alive. Polygyny can be further distinguished into two types:
(a) Sororal polygyny, if a man is married to two or more sisters and
(b) Non-sororal polygyny, if a man is married to two or more women who are not sisters.
Polyandry is the marriage of a woman to more than one man who are alive. Polyandry can be of two types:
(a) Fraternal polyandry, if a woman is married to two or more brothers and
(b) Non-fraternal polyandry, if a woman is married to two or more men who are not brothers.
14. What are the two systems of education? Mention the three important components of formal education.
Answer : The two systems of education are:
(i) Formal education
(ii) Informal education
The three important components of formal education are:
(a) An organized structure
(b) A definite and properly spelt out content of education
(c) Definite rules and regulations
Problem Solving
1. Make a list of kinship terms used in your family for father, brother, father’s brother, his wife, his sons and daughters, and for father’s sister, her husband and her sons and daughters. Similarly make a list of terms for mother, her brother, his wife and his sons and daughters, as also for mother’s sister, her husband, and her sons and daughter. Are these kinship terms classificatory or descriptive?
Answer: As someone from Bengali community, here is the list of kinship terms used in my family:
Father’s side:
- Father: Baba
- Brother (father’s): Dada (if elder), Bhai (if same age or younger)
- Father’s brother: Kaka, Jethu (if elder)
- Father’s brother’s wife: Kaki, Jethima (if elder)
- Father’s brother’s son: Bhai, Dada (if elder), Khurtuto Bhai
- Father’s brother’s daughter: Bon, Didi (if elder), Khurtuto Bon
- Father’s sister: Pishi, Pishima
- Father’s sister’s husband: Pishe, Pishemoshai
- Father’s sister’s son: Bhai, Dada (if elder), Pistuto Bhai
- Father’s sister’s daughter: Bon, Didi (if elder), Pistuto Bon
Mother’s side:
- Mother: Ma
- Mother’s brother: Mama
- Mother’s brother’s wife: Mami, Mamima
- Mother’s brother’s son: Bhai, Dada (if elder), Mamatuto Bhai
- Mother’s brother’s daughter: Bon, Didi (if elder), Mamatuto Bon
- Mother’s sister: Mashi, Mashima
- Mother’s sister’s husband: Mesho, Meshomoshai
- Mother’s sister’s son: Bhai, Dada (if elder), Mastuto Bhai
- Mother’s sister’s daughter: Bon, Didi (if elder), Mastuto Bon
These kinship terms are mostly classificatory, as many of the terms (e.g. bhāi, bon) are applied to more than one relationship category, such as both own and cousin siblings. However, some are descriptive, like Baba and Mā, which refer only to one’s biological parents.
2. In Nagaland, a large number of people are employed in agriculture and many more are in Government services and some are in small industries. In this context, how do you describe the economy of Nagaland – as agricultural, industrial or mixed? Give reasons.
Answer: The economy of Nagaland can be described as a mixed economy. This is because a large number of people are engaged in agriculture, which shows the importance of the primary sector. At the same time, many are employed in Government services, which is part of the tertiary sector, and some are involved in small industries, which belong to the secondary sector. The presence of all three sectors—agriculture, industry and services—indicates a mixed economy.
Think and Answer
1. At present nuclear families are becoming common especially in our towns. What are the reasons?
Answer: Nuclear families are becoming common in towns due to various reasons. Urbanisation has led to people moving away from their villages in search of jobs and education, resulting in smaller family units. High cost of living in towns also makes it difficult for large families to live together. Additionally, changing lifestyles and the desire for independence have encouraged young couples to live separately from their extended families. These factors have contributed to the rise of nuclear families in towns.
2. Traditional Naga religion is described as animism. In what way is it different from monotheism like Christianity? Explain from your experience.
Answer: Traditional Naga religion, described as animism, involves the belief that spirits dwell in natural objects like trees, rivers, animals and mountains. People performed rituals to honour or appease these spirits, believing they could influence daily life. Christianity, although Trinitarian in form—believing in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is monotheistic because all three are understood as one God. Unlike animism, Christianity focuses on the worship of one supreme God and follows teachings based on the Bible. From experience, traditional animism is centred on multiple spiritual forces in nature, while Christianity teaches faith in one God who is above nature.
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